This is Nuts.

The thing that eats at me some days is the boredom of Western life.

Now, I’ve been told before that my frustrations amount to not appreciating what we have in the West. Our constant convenience, endless entertainment, technology that affords us all manner of advantages over past times in our existence. Perhaps true.

I could pay a ridiculous fee every month for bundles of TV, movies, and internet. The fee would bring me mind-numbing entertainment, constant propaganda, endless consumerism, pointless speculations by talking heads, re-runs, remakes, repeats, reboots, rehashed nonsense, ‘reality’ TV, examples of rude, lewd, improper, inexcusable, unconscionable thinking, attitudes, and actions—all of these thought-killing, principle-destroying things are, passed off to me, the consumer, as Normality. God save us from such norms. This is all interspersed with occasionally very interesting programming and other conveniences, which convinces most to rationalize and pay the fee to destroy their own minds.

I could “go out” in the evenings, patronize my local bar, or spend countless dollars and brain cells attempting to find ways to decreases the ever-present lonely nature of our existence in the West by ignoring my own instincts and pretending that the return on the investment is somehow there. The town I live in, however, is packed to the brim with entitled, unfriendly, often rude women and girls, and thus wasting my time on such outings is basically an exercise in futility. Let’s hear it, gals: it’s the same with the guys in this town. Right. Whatever.

I could sell myself to the corporate machine and invest all of my efforts into becoming a Company Man. Speak the jargon, dress the part, engage in meetings, look for ways to move up the company ladder, worry with which car I must own in order to keep moving up said ladder, whom I should know, where I should live, etc. I could spend countless hours pouring myself into that role, to simply feel I have a place, a part to play, and to quell some of the boredom with the occasional Team Building retreats and such.

I could go on and on but I won’t. The point is obvious: for certain of us here in the West, each day is an exercise in boredom, in tolerating the intolerable. It’s days filled with the What Next’s of our manic, obsessed culture. It is often days filled with watching others behave like children, then throw tantrums like children when caught, then shriek loudly so that no one wants to deal with those tantrums, thus they are released from any further consequences, just so they’ll hush. It’s days of often having people agree with you when they hear or read your words about these things and nod their heads approvingly, not grasping they are the point of the comment, the Westerner now about as self-aware as your average turnip. They agree, then go find something else they agree with, ignoring all criticism from life because they believe they have a ‘right’ to just ‘be who they are’, thus they simply ignore that which does not fit their ‘positive vibe.’